I. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to methods and systems for outputting data in a computer system. More particularly, the invention relates to methods, computer systems, and computer program products for categorizing and outputting data at, for example, a user-interface in a computer system or a client system.
II. Background Information
In a computer system, several applications or computer programs may be running simultaneously. It is known to represent those running programs or parts of the running programs simultaneously to, for example, a user at a user-interface. For example, in the Microsoft Windows® operating system, when running different programs, for each program a separate window may be present in a graphical user-interface (GUI), in which window a part of the respective program is represented. Thus, a user can perceive several programs simultaneously at a single user-interface.
Also, in relation to computer systems running an enterprise resource system, role based integration platforms are known. In a role based integration platform, information may be presented to a user at the user-interface from different programs running simultaneously, but the presented information is typically limited to information which is related to the role of a user in the enterprise. Thus, only information relevant to the user is presented and less redundant information may or may not be presented.
One drawback of these known methods and systems is that still separate programs are represented at the user-interface. Thus, a user has to absorb information from each program separately and then merge the information from the different programs. For role based integration platforms, a user receives only information relevant to his/her role, but since the information is represented in different programs, it is difficult to understand, inter alia, his/her role, the status of the work, and what to do next. Accordingly, known systems and methods have a low ease of use.